Flipitphysics for University Physics : Classical Mechanics

Tim Stelzer is an associate professor of physics, and distinguished teacher-scholar at the University of Illinois. He received a B.S in physics from St. Johns University in 1988 and a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1993. His particle physics research has focused on physics at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laborarory and the LHC in Geneva Switzerland. Several of his papers are among the top cited in high energy physics.

Tim worked on the award winning transformation of the introductory physics courses at the University of Illinois and is a founding member of their Physics Education Research group. His education research has focused on making appropriate use of technology to improve student learning. He is a co-inventor of the iclicker personal response system and is coauthor of the smartPhysics learning system. Tim is a regular on the University's Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by Their Students, and received the 2013 Excellence in Education Award from the American Physical Society.Mats Selen earned B.Sc.(82) and M.Sc.(83) degrees in physics at the University of Guelph, and M.A.(85) and Ph.D.(89) degrees in particle physics at Princeton University. After a four year post-doc at Cornell he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois Department of Physics in 1993, where he is now the Associate Head of Undergraduate Programs. After 25 years of studying elementary particles he is shifting his research focus to understanding and improving the way students learn physics. With Illinois colleagues he developed the iclicker classroom response system, the smartPhysics learning framework, and most recently IOLabs. Professor Gary Gladding, a high energy experimentalist, joined the Department of Physics at Illinois as a research associate after receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971. He became assistant professor in 1973 and has, since 1985, been a full professor. He has done experiments at CERN, Fermilab, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. He served as Associate Head for Undergraduate Programs for thirteen years. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions to the improvement of large enrollment introductory physics courses. Since 1996, Professor Gladding has led the faculty group responsible for the success of the massive curriculum revision that has transformed the introductory physics curriculum here at Illinois. This effort has involved more than 50 faculty and improved physics instruction for more than 25,000 science and engineering undergraduate students. He has shifted his research focus over the last ten years to physics education research (PER) and currently leads the PER group. He is also heavily involved in preparing at-risk students for success in physics coursework through the development of Physics 100. Professor Gladding was also a key player in the creation and development of i>clicker(TM).